Among surgeries carried out by surgeons, insertion of a stent graft into an aneurysm and resection or ligation surgery of a blood vessel require careful and skilled techniques, which spell the difference between life and death. Therefore, it is necessary for medical interns and medical students as well as vascular surgeons to repeatedly carry out surgical training by using a blood vessel model so as to learn skilled techniques.
There have hitherto been proposed, as a material which constitutes a blood vessel model for practicing surgery, a synthetic rubber, a diene-based rubber, and the like (see, for example, paragraph [0009] in Patent Literature 1 and paragraph [0015] in Patent Literature 2); a natural rubber, a silicone rubber, an acrylic rubber, an olefinic rubber, polyurethane, and the like (see, for example, paragraph [0006] in Patent Literature 3, paragraph [0006] in Patent Literature 4, paragraph [0015] in Patent Literature 5 and paragraph [0013] in Patent Literature 6); polyvinyl chloride, polybutadiene, ionomer, low density polyethylene, and the like (see, for example, paragraph [0017] in Patent Literature 7); and the like. A tube made of a silicone rubber has been widely used among these materials, since the silicone rubber is comparatively similar to a blood vessel of the human body. However, since the above-mentioned materials such as the silicone rubber have very strong water repellency, the materials have neither hydrophilicity nor flexibility like the blood vessel of the human body. Therefore, it cannot be said that the blood vessel model made of the material is suited for vascular surgeons to perform manipulation training.
Accordingly, it has recently been required by researchers of medical colleges, surgical hospitals and the like, including vascular surgeons, to develop a blood vessel model which can be suitably used as a blood vessel model for practicing resection or ligation surgery of a blood vessel, a blood vessel model for practicing insertion of a stent graft into an aneurysm, and the like.